Random is as random does

[mellicious]

(that phrase just popped into my head, I have no idea if I saw it somewhere or what. I have the memory of a gnat sometimes, so it's always possible.)

Col made a pie chart depicting how we spend our time in WoW, which I won't try to reproduce here because it's illegible at a small size. Go look at the original size instead. (I do think it exaggerates the amount of time we spend deciding what to do, but only slightly.)

Actual conversation during the making of above pie chart:

[09:40]columbina: OH MY GOD I HATE EXCEL
[09:41] mellificent: what's wrong
[09:41] columbina: i cannot understand how people use this thing habitually all day long without going insane
[09:41] columbina: I have made a lovely pie chart
[09:41] columbina: but 1) there is no option I can find to save it as a graphic and 2) every time I move away from the chart to look at something else it keeps dropping a legend back in I don't want
[09:42] mellificent: I don't make pie charts in excel, I make them in powerpoint, so I have no advice :)
[09:42] mellificent: print screen?
[09:43] columbina: it's a thought - if i can just remember where windows drops those
[09:43] mellificent: in the clipboard :)
[09:43] columbina: oh yeah, that's right, it's stupid
[09:51] mellificent: it's stupid?
[09:51] columbina: print screen should drop the data to a file, not the clipboard
[09:52] columbina: that's a damned big lot to put on the clipboard.

(I don't know if anybody but me will find that conversation amusing, but there you are. Possibly it's because I spend too much time with Microsoft Office.)

Let's discuss WoW some more, I haven't done that lately. I have three whole characters over level 20 - draenei shaman, human paladin, and blood-elf hunter. The first two are in the high twenties and the third one just got to 20 a couple of days ago. Col and I spent a lot of time weekend before last working on a big involved paladin quest-chain that involved a couple of instances, and so that helped the paladin a lot. This past weekend we mostly played the elves. (His elf warlock now has a succubus, which is, um, interesting. The succubus has wings, wears a bustier and is prone to flogging herself. Sometimes it amazes me that they get away with calling this game T for Teen.)

Then I have a gnome mage at level 14 or so, who I haven't played much lately - partly because I've already been through those quests a couple of times already and get bored. I also have an orc (a rogue) who is about level 11, and who is more fun since she has a whole different set of quests. One way in which WoW does seem like a kids' game is their ability to make practically anything cute, starting with orcs and trolls and going right on down through things like ghouls and maggots. (You need an animation of a maggot to see what's cute about them, but I don't have the dedication to look for one right now. Also, I have yet to see the elephant-size ones referred to there. Those may be less cute.) Anyway, orc females are kind of oddly cute, too. (here's an example, although of course mine is cuter.)

Remember way back when (it was February or March, maybe) when I bought the tickets to the Yankees and the Red Sox? At the time, it did not occur to me that these tickets were in June and so was Father's Day, etc. etc., and I promised some of the tickets to my friend* Emily, but Emily, after saying she wanted them initially, never replied back to a couple of e-mails about it, and so I decided that I probably could feel free to give away/sell the tickets. And when I looked to see when exactly these tickets were - you can probably see this coming - lo, they were on Father's Day. So I got to call my dad and say, "You want to go see the Yankees Sunday?" and he is pretty happy about that. And yay, everybody wins. (Except Emily, if she should decide she still wants to go. But that's the breaks.)

*This would be "friend" in the sense of "somebody I hung around with years ago and now talk to one or twice a year".


Random comics:
Have you seen Doonesbury this week on gay divorces? It's looking interesting. (And I have no idea who Mark was supposed to be married to so I can't feel bad about it.) I particularly like today's - "sanctioned by a defunct airline"! (I am informed that these are not new strips, incidentally, but I hadn't seen them before!)

And I was reading early xkcd's, for some reason, and found this Serenity group portrait, which amused me. (I should point out for non-readers of xkcd that if you hover, there's a legend.) (Also, I had apparently never read through the early part of the archives before. There's some interesting stuff in there.)

Comments

[chanfaina.livejournal.com]

Ha! On the pie chart. I don't play, but someone I live with does. He would probably add in a 5% (or more) slice for "gathering spiderwebs." Which are essential for some function or another. Anyway. It seems as though every other night, I'd pass through the room and say, "Oh, hey, are you questing tonight, or are we having dinner together?" And he'd reply,

"First of all, it's not 'questing'; the verb is 'to raid.' So, 'raiding.' Second, no. I'm just gathering spiderwebs so I can ______________ (insert something game related that I block out because I am not really that interested). I'll be in in a minute. If you start the rice, I'll chop vegetables."

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Ah, but questing and raiding are wholly different activities!

Spiderwebs are used for some trade skills so that falls under the slice that was labelled "mining, leatherworking, tailoring, etc." It's way more than five percent, in my opinion.

[chanfaina.livejournal.com]

This is why, "gathering spiderwebs" is now code for "doing something dull and mindless [perhaps in preparation for doing something fun]." Sort of like how Scout explains (in To Kill a Mockingbird) that "selling cotton"* is a polite term for pretty much doing nothing. Like, "And what does your uncle do?" "Oh, well, he sells cotton."



*Someone who has read this book in the past deceade, please correct me if I have bungled the expression.